Bon Jovi, New Orleans, and a Ripper
by WhimsicalSanity
Summary: A diary contains the memories we're committed to never forgetting. Lexi finds her way to Mystic Falls and the Salvatores, and it changes her life forever. Diary entry style, all Lexi PoV.
1. August 17, 1864

**A/N:** Lexi is my favorite character from TVD, and I love the flashbacks of her through the series. I'll be updating regularly with journal entries of her to explore certain moments in her life, mainly interactions with the Salvatores and others she knows in the series. I'm hoping each one can be inspired in part by a Bon Jovi song, but that's just a pipe dream. I know this one is super short, but the rest will be longer. I needed to set the scene and all that jazz. Enjoy!

Please review if you read!

**Disclaimer: **I don't own The Vampire Diaries (too bad, right?). The characters and settings are simply borrowed from the brilliant Julie Plec & Co.

* * *

_I don't know where I'm going, but I know where I've been._

"Lost Highway" - Bon Jovi

* * *

_August 17, 1864_

Dear Diary,

The war is still raging on at a grisly cost. I do what I can to help, assisting whomever I stumble upon first. My profession as a nurse in my human life is sufficient help when I happen upon an injured soldier, Union or Confederate. Though, the proximity of the blood and my craving limit greatly what I can do. Some of the things I see are the most ghastly I have seen in my two hundred and fifty years.

Today, a voice rang out as clear to me as a whip-poor-will's song, no gifted hearing needed. It was a plea for help. I combed through the bodies littering the blood stained field of strife until I found the source, and what greeted me was a scene I see too often. Here laid a man on the ground, a helpless look written across his face. The overwhelming stench of blood and gunpowder signify something that wasn't hard to miss; his legs were mangled and partially missing, presumably blown away from a cannon blast. Somehow I found the courage to meet his eyes without showcasing the severity of his injuries. But his words, the last words of a dying man, will haunt me for the rest of eternity as I walk this Earth.

_Ma'am, I know I'm dying. I can feel my soul going home. But, please Miss, go tell my mother that I went home. I'm safe._

With labored breaths between nearly every word, he told me his last wish. After pulling out a piece of parchment from his breast pocket and placing it in my hand, his head lolled back. And with that, he had gone home.

It's strange when you see the last breath of life leave a person. That one last tether to life is severed, and they cease to exist. Being what I am, it should mean nothing to clip that last string and feast on the elixir of the living; blood. But it does. If there's an ounce of humanity left in your soul, death is a sacred passage. Just because we've escaped and alluded it doesn't mean that we shouldn't respect it. For even the eternal can meet final damnation.

Later that night, I made my way southeast through a dense forest. By the moonlight shining through the limbs and my keen eyesight, I kept reading and rereading the address on the parchment the man had given me. The parchment was actually an envelope with a letter inside. I dared not to open it, and it didn't take much convincing for me to realize I had to deliver it.

That dying man had held on long enough to ensure this letter would reach his mother. I had no other choice. _Mystic Falls, Virginia_, it read. I had never been before, but rumors run across the lands of the place like wildfire. The opportunity to uphold a dying man's last wish and a chance to view such a heralded town with my own eyes seemed like a good idea.

At first, the sense of good idea remained. Under the soft glow of moonlight, my first duty was to deliver the letter to the man's mother. She wept openly in my arms, and the tear stains are still visible on the fabric of my dress. Without question, she was mourning, but there was something more. _He wasn't alone_, she had said. It brought her relief. _He wasn't alone, and I'll be with him again one day_, she kept repeating in lament. And I truly hope she will.

But now, the strangeness of this town is setting in. Something isn't right here. The people of the town are suspicious, too suspicious. For the night, I have managed to get a room secured at a boarding house on the outskirts. I'm unsure of how long I'll be in this town, though. Rumors get twisted, and I don't trust whatever lurks beneath the surface. From the outside looking in, it's the typical Southern town in the shadow of the mountains. But from the inside out, it's anything but ordinary.

_Alexia Branson_

_ Mystic Falls, Virginia_


	2. August 19, 1864

**A/N: **Please review if you read! More updates soon.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own The Vampire Diaries (too bad, right?). The characters and settings are simply borrowed from the brilliant Julie Plec & Co.

* * *

_We're one breath away from our judgement day. You got to learn to love._

"Learn to Love" - Bon Jovi

* * *

_August 19, 1864_

Dear Diary,

I was right about this town. Suspicions run rampant through the streets; weary gazes, whispered questions, and vervain. But, it is all justified. Yesterday, I ran across a newborn ripper. For a moment, the youngling tried to feed from me in a show of his true age. The house in which he inhabits is a grisly testament to his lack of guidance. Bodies everywhere, some clinging to the last breaths of life, others in varying stages of decay; it was clear that he needs help before he spirals even more out of control and gets himself killed.

I'm the first one of our kind he has seen since he was born on the heels of his sire's death, and that built an instant bond of trust. Katherine Pierce, better known as Katerina Petrova, has a reckless streak, and she's lived up to and died her infamous ways this time. It was not just one newborn she left behind, but two. Stefan, the ripper, and his brother Damon; they were both her jealous lovers. But in a show of true poetic justice, Katerina is nothing more than a pile of ash in the rubble of a church.

My arrival to this town couldn't be at any worse of a time, but I have to stay. Stefan needs to learn that it's okay to feel as a vampire. Guilt is natural, immortal or not. The immortal carry a bigger burden of guilt, because we have no escape from it. Humans are lucky. Death is a promise for them. Eventually, they have a reprieve. Our kind does not, unless we meet the absolute end.

The sour taste of love and loss still haunts Stefan, and I'm afraid that will be our biggest struggle. He traded the absence of pain and suffering for his humanity. It's a foolish choice, nonetheless. Love is waiting for everyone, but only if you're willing to accept it. Whenever you block emotions out, you block the ability to love. What a sad life one would lead without love or the prospect of it.

Hope resides in him, though. That much I can attest to. He allowed me to clean up his mess. A couple of the women, I was able to save. The others were buried with a whispered prayer in unmarked graves throughout the forest. I wish I could have offered them more. I know better than to be overly hopeful, though. Stefan Salvatore has a long journey ahead of him down the road to humanity and co-existence with the human residents of this town.

Speaking of this town, it's one of the more beautiful places I have been fortunate enough to happen upon. Somehow, it has managed to elude the tragedy of the war. There's no sign of torching fires or cannon blast craters. Something is at work here, but it's beyond my comprehension.

The town, Mystic Falls, is run by a council of the founding families. Carefully prosed questions during my trip into a saloon yesterday gave me plenty of answers but even more questions in turn. A Gilbert man, I cannot recall his name, sat at the bar nursing his broken heart over glass after glass of whiskey. Completely inebriated and an easy target, he was my main source of information. He even let it slip about the vampires burning in the church.

It wasn't long after that, that I found Stefan. Am I crazy to believe that love can be enough to redeem a broken soul? I've happened upon his kind before. All but one had the capacity to love again and to be saved. Hope resides for Stefan in that fact. Surely, he loved Katherine. But love will come again. Life and death is a cruel pair, but they're one you must accept. You cannot have the one without the other. His grief over her death can only cast a shadow across his life for so long. Eventually, the sun rises and bathes you in a brand new light.

The task will be convincing Stefan of this. He has a brother as I mentioned, Damon. Where Stefan spiraled out of control, Damon is momentarily perfection personified when it comes to control of his grief. It is buried under a mountain of an illusion of apathy. If I'm honest, I think Damon carries more of the burden over her demise. Not because he was the source, but because Damon knows what love means, the consequences, and he's willing to face them while Stefan is not. But one day, Damon's facade will fall, too. You can never outrun your past and the ghosts of what haunt you. That's a lesson I've learned from experience.

The evening sun is starting to sink away to the west, and nightfall will be soon. Stefan and his brother have the most unusual rings in their possession. They can endure the sun and walk freely during the day all thanks to these rings. Stefan said they were left behind for them by Katherine. They're enchanted by a witch. I've made a promise to myself to visit Bree soon in search of a trinket for myself that has the ability to let me roam the daylight hours. But until I can, I'm stuck inside of this boarding house for a couple more hours.

I have plans to meet with Stefan in the wooded area lining town, and I trust he will be there. If he isn't, I know it will be my duty to find him. One way or the other, Stefan will not live his days as a ripper. I'll make sure of it.

_Alexia Branson_

_Mystic Falls, Virginia_


End file.
